Contents

"Straight Edge", a song from the Minor Threat EP, inadvertently inspired the straight edge movement. The song, while written merely as an account of MacKaye's personal views and lifestyle, was seen to be a call for abstinence from drugs and alcohol, a then-unusual concept for punk rock.

"Out of Step", from the follow-up In My Eyes EP, further demonstrates the aesthetic: "Don't smoke/ Don't drink/ Don't fuck/ At least I can fucking think/ I can't keep up/ Can't keep up/ Can't keep up/ I'm out of step with the world." Some in Minor Threat, particularly drummer Jeff Nelson, took exception to what they saw as MacKaye's imperious attitude on the song. This spurred the band to re-record the track as the title song of their 1983 Out of Step album, on which MacKaye clearly sang "I don't drink/smoke/fuck" (as was the intent of his words all along), and an argument between him and Nelson in which he states that "this is no set of rules, I'm not telling you what to do" was surreptitiously recorded by producer Don Zientara to be dubbed onto the track right before the final chorus. Ironically, according to Mark Andersen and Mark Jenkins' Dance of Days: Two Decades of Punk in the Nation's Capital, this argument was over exactly what would be said in the message that Nelson wanted MacKaye to record stating essentially what he said without knowing it was being recorded.

"In My Eyes" is an anti-drug song which has been covered by rap metal band Rage Against the Machine, among others. Along with "Straight Edge" and "Out of Step", "In My Eyes" helped to solidify views of Minor Threat as a band with an anti-drug platform. Unlike the original "Straight Edge", a relatively standard hardcore composition, each verse of "In My Eyes" seethes with anger and contempt, building up to the cathartic release of the chorus.

"Guilty of Being White" led to accusations of racial prejudice, due to perceived similarities between the song's lyrics and that of white power rhetoric which often frames the majority race as victims at the hands of a minority group. However, MacKaye has strongly denied such intentions and said that some listeners misinterpreted his words. According to him, the song was written about his experiences growing up in Washington, D.C. at a time of high racial tension, where the majority race in his school was African-American and many black students were hostile towards whites. Slayer later covered the song, though they changed the lyric "guilty of being white" to "guilty of being right" at the song's climax.